Experimental
by VX-145
Summary: Continuing. Tom has a problem. A new one this time! Contains Original Character. No, he won't end up piloting an Eva. Nor will he be superpowered. At least not until the end. Try to power through the opening chapters, the later ones should be better :P
1. Well, Fuck

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"Well, Fuck."

A mid-teenage boy was standing in the middle of a street. Not unusual, had it been three hours ago. The entire city had fled at the approaching menace, not wanting to risk their lives to secure their property.

This wasn't what made this boy so unusual, though. What did, was the fact he was clothed in pyjamas, in the middle of a street lined with stores.

The boy turned, hearing a sound, he spun around to see a girl of about the same age collapsing onto the floor. He ran over to her, and, finding she was unconscious, he repeated his earlier statement.

"Well, _Fuck_."

The boy heard another sound. He turned again.

To be confronted by a gigantic wall of water.

"Well, _FUCK!_"

_Author's notes:_

So, first story. As the title suggests, this is purely experimental, and somthing I've cobbled together in about 5 minutes. So, should I continue?

Oh, and the reason it's here? For those who haven't figured it out, it's set in 2000. Figure it out from there.


	2. Respawning is a bitch

Disclaimer: Well, I might just own Tom

Disclaimer: Well, I might just own Tom. But he's just there to be made fun of.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeep._

Tom woke up. Again.

"Well, Fu… Wait a minute. I've already been here, haven't I?"

Sure enough, one second later there was a _thud_. He turned and saw the girl unconscious on the floor.

"Well, I'm just about to be drowned by a gigantic tsunami, aren't I? Well, Fuck."

The wave chose to hit at that moment.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeep._

Tom woke up. Again.

This time, however, he had a plan. He turned, picked up the girl who was just in the process of falling unconscious, and ran.

There was a calculation for whether or not he'd get far enough away.

The wave was travelling at about half a kilometre a second.

Tom's top speed was 200 meters a minute, and he could only keep that up for about thirty seconds.

That meant Tom didn't stand even a snowball's chance in hell of escaping.

For the 35th time that "Day", Tom, and the girl, drowned.

_Author's Notes:_

Well, since I've got exactly 145 hits at this moment, I thought it would be oddly appropriate to upload this. Plus, my only reviewer (So far) has said they'd like to see more. That's why this is up.

I guess I need to change the summary now, anyway.


	3. And so is Lilith

Disclaimer: Still don't own anything

Disclaimer: Still don't own anything. Well, I own Tom. But I don't own anyone else (Yet).

Chapter 3- Escape!

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeep._

"Here we go again. Three hundredth and thirty second, and counting."

It's said that dying makes you value life. It's also said that the people who said that were talking out of their arses. Yet more people strongly disagree, having experienced death, but I digress.

You see, Tom was one of the people who believed in the second opinion. This actually happened to be a relatively recent change in opinion, as before he actually believed in the first opinion more.

In simpler terms, Tom thought that most of the world's philosophy was bullshit. And, since he was the first person to die and live through it, while conscious, his opinion mattered a lot.

But not to anyone who matters for this story, so let's move on, shall we?

Tom had, this time, Respawned in a completely different place, courtesy of one Angelic being. Of course, Tom didn't know this fact, nor did he know anything about the Angels. In fact, Tom had never watched that particular Anime about three children who had to pilot gigantic living war machines to save the planet. If he had, he would have been scared of the being in front of him, who just so happened to be laughing at a completely unrelated event.

Instead, he was angry. In fact, he was PISSED.

It's a little known fact that when very specific people get angry, a very specific gene, called Nonexistium for unknown reasons, activates. That gene enhances the Adrenaline flowing into the blood, not only increasing strength by 0.001, but also making the person "a bit more annoyed" (Prof. B. S. Thisis, _On Nonexistium_, Completely Untrue Books, 2010)

Of course, the Angel Lilith had to piss off one of the very few people who had this gene.

It's been hypothesized by several of the leading professors in Angology (The study of the Angels), that it is impossible to render an angel unconscious, due to the S2 Organ stimulating the brain until it is destroyed.

They were wrong.

When Lilith awoke, Tom was still pissed. Fortunately for her, however, he wasn't pissed enough anymore for the gene to activate. Unfortunately for Tom, Lilith _was_ pissed.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeep._

"Three hundredth and thirty third."

Now Tom was a little scared. Well, he was VERY scared. I.E. He now needed to change his clothes.

Most people hold the opinion that dying 333 times would make people not really care anymore. Tom, however, also thought that theory was bullshit. He still didn't want to die for the 333rd time as much as he didn't want to die for the first.

So it was now that Tom decided to not piss off the scary woman with the Magical Shield Of Doom.

"So, boy, have you chosen to show some respect? Or have you decided to die for the millionth time?" Lilith spoke first.

"Three hundredth and thirty fourth, actually. And no, not until you show me why I should, aside from the entire "I can kill you with a thought" thing. So, let's start with you name. Who are you?" Tom got a reply in.

"I'm the reason you are here. But my name is Lilith."

"So, Lilith, where am I, why am I here and, most importantly, why have I DIED THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE TIMES?" Tom was rapidly reaching the threshold where Nonexistium would start being activated.

"You are currently inside your own mind, which is actually somewhere off the new coast of Japan. And the term I believe you would use for the reason you are here is "For shits and giggles.""

_Author's notes: _

I've kind of rushed this chapter (Writer's block and see below), and it still needs a bit of fine-tuning, but I'm impatient to start the next one. That's where the fun begins (I hope, it may actually be the one after that)

Oh, and so far, this chapter has actually set an all-time record for both the longest chapter I have written that is public, and the longest chapter I have taken to write (Spread over 4-5 days, about 3 hours in total.)


	4. Escape! For reals this time!

Disclaimer: If I didn't own this several years ago, I sure as hell don't own it now.

Chapter 4 - Escape! For real this time!

"So... You've kept me waiting here for what seems like four years. And, aside from occasionally ranting at me about various things, you've yet to actually explain anything. What I'm trying to say is, if you're not going to do anything, can I go now?"

After what felt like four years (but was actually no time at all, because, you know, pocket dimension and all that) Tom had finally worked up enough courage - and sanity - to actually say something to the vaguely-female figure that popped up every now and then to scream about things like "That never happened, you assholes" and "Jesus tittyfucking CHRIST you sick bastards why would you say Shinji ever did something like that" and so on. While he would eventually find out who this "Shinji" person was, he would never find out what Lillith was talking about. That's probably for the best, lest this story blow up the fourth wall completely. That thing is a bitch to repair. Regardless of such musings, an answer was soon forthcoming:

"Are you still hanging around? I actually forgot you existed for a moment. Sorry about that, I guess. That IS what you're supposed to say, right? Sorry?" She (he? it? Do Angels even have genders? Does LCL taste like Irn Brew or does Irn Brew taste like LCL? These are the great questions of our time) paused for a moment, having been cut off from starting another rant, then kept going (not giving Tom an opportunity to answer her question, of course): "It doesn't matter. Look, things have gone horribly, horribly wrong and I am trying everything to fix them and I've had to maintain a presence in fifty-seven thousand seperate universes simultaneously and every time I get one right another one pops up and it's something like "hey Shinji's now a tentacle monster and Gendo's a young schoolgirl" and I really, _really_ wish I could actually get drunk right now. I'd settle for actually being able to drink at all. Even water. I would trade souls with you just to be able to drink water. It's supposed to help with headaches and I have the third-largest headache possible right now. So, what I'm going to do is, instead of sending you back home - which may or may not be impossible anyway, my mistake, sorry - I'm going to send you to the year Two Thousand Anno Domini. In this universe. You know, with the global tidal waves and stuff like that. Not your pristine, mostly tentacle-rape-lacking universe. That means you owe me one. You are going to pay me back by making sure none of that really, really messed up shit happens in this universe. Mildly messed up is fine, but the instant I even imagine the words "tentacle rape" I will kill you one million times in the most painful ways I can think of. Tentacle rape may be involed. Seriously, who the fuck does that in this day and age?"

Tom got the distinct impression that the lady (?) with the Magical Shield of Doom wasn't entirely talking to him - and got a strange feeling she might have been deliberately annoying the narrator, whatever or whoever that was - and, as a result, didn't listen to the really important bits of her lateset tirade. Such bits included the part where she mentioned the fact he wasn't in his home universe and that he could never go back. This may have had an impact on his actions in the future, namely neglecting to ask just what universe he was in and what exactly he was supposed to do here, with no identification, no family and no money - unless unsold clothes and body parts count as money, in which case he had about eight thousand and thirty Great British Pounds on (and in) him, depending on whether or not he could find a good deal on the black market.

As such, when she (they?) said "Have fun, toodles!" (disclaimer: this is an artist's rendition of what she actually said, which may have been several paragraphs long) he wasn't really prepared to go from the classic "Floating in a formless void" position to the more exotic position known as "Standing on a flat surface". The most immediate consequence of this was that he fell flat on his face. The second-most immediate consequence of this was that he fell flat on his face in the middle of an abandoned (but no longer flooded, at least) city, formerly known as Tokyo, in a rather quaint little collection of islands known as Japan. Tom suddenly got the feeling he was about to be embroiled in something far, far above his usual pay grade, which was whatever money he could scrounge from various sources like his parents and, occasionally, the government. And, as he was thinking that, he suddenly realised that neither one would be an option for quite a while. Luckily for him, starvation wasn't really on the table, no pun intended, thanks to the fact that this story would either lose its "Humor" classification or be rather short if he did. Unluckily for him, what he did next is going to be the subject of the next chapter. We'll catch up with him in four more years.

_Author's Notes (Yeah, this is going to be a thing. Sorry.)_

As you may or may not be able to tell, this story was first uploaded several yeas ago. Four, in fact (hence the references). That means it hails from a time when men were men, women were also men (don't even ask about the dogs), Barack Obama was not elected yet (although it was pretty much certain) and the world was either four or seven years from destruction, depending on who you asked. You can be forgiven, therefore, for thinking "What the hell is this, who the hell updates a story after four years of non-updatedness?" The answer would, of course, be me, but also someone incredibly bored who, wanting to find something funny to read, came across this work (so they royally fucked up the whole "I need to read something funny" thing) and thinking "Hey I have some ideas for this, let's do it!"

As for the other question I'm sure you have, (aside from the obvious one - the answer to that is no, you cannot) which is "What the hell is going on with the narration?" , the answer is simple. I'm bored. I write weird when I'm bored.


	5. In which something actually happens!

Disclaimer: Do I _really _need to say this? *sigh* I don't own Evangelion, nor do I expect to get any money from this. I'd like to, but it's not going to happen.

Chapter 5: In which something actually happens!

Tom was, understandable, a little worried. The cause of his worry this time was the fact that he had forgotten how to stand up in a realm outside of his own mind (or in the Plot Dimension (tm) - he wasn't entirely sure what had just happened either) and had thus fallen flat onto his face about three seconds after he'd been zapped back into existence. After a bit of groping around the rather messy and probably-no-longer-safe-for-public mind, (being trapped in the Plot Dimension (tm) - or his own mind - for four years may have messed him up slightly) he finally managed to find the bit that controlled his body. Unfortunately, he hadn't quite managed to figure out how to move without cutting his hands on the glass-littered floor yet.

"Alright! Time to blow this joint - ow - and go - ow - home... wait," he paused for a second, finally realising that he could see things and they'd actually be there now, "why is there glass everywhere? More to the point, just where the hell am I?" He walked - well, it was less "walking" and more "falling forwards" - over to the nearest structure, which seemed to be some sort of office block. "And, come to think of it, where is everyone? This looks like a city, and unless I'm in Russia - which I doubt, there's a distinct lack of Vodka and snow - I don't think there are any abandoned cities on the planet." He staggered over to the sign on the wall, and let of a stream of curses that, in the interests of having this be legal to publish, shall not be repeated here. "What the hell is this crap?" he let out, after exhausting his (surprisingly large, for a fourteen-year-old) vocabulary; "Chinese? Japanese? Fucking hieroglyphs? Just where the fuck am I? How in the name of Saint Peter's hairy balls did I get here?"

"Isn't it a sin to blaspheme the name of a saint in your religion, Yankee?" A voice came from behind, accented and dripping with mockery. There may have been a bit of grease dripping from the voice too.

"I'm English, cockbreath. Also? An atheist. I think." Tom turned around - very slowly, not because he didn't want to upset the person behind him but because he though it'd be more dramatic. It wasn't. Then again, neither was the person who was now in front of him; a short, rotund Japanese man dressed in a buisness suit that was several sizes too small for him. The only real thing intimidating about him was the fact he was pointing a pistol at Tom's stomach.

"That is not a polite way to greet someone, is it, you Igirisu bastard? My name is Taichi. You will tell me yours, then we shall have tea and crumpets, yes?" A smirk grew on Taichi's face.

"Really. Taichi. That's the name you're going with? That just sounds stupid on more levels than I care to li-" A gunshot fortunately interrupted Tom before he could piss off the person with a gun too much. He paled for a second, then continued; "Tom. My name is Tom. Now then, I believe you mentioned something about tea and crumpets? Because that sounds simply delightful," he rushed out, laying on as much of a stereotypical English accent as he could; "Please, do lead on." For his part, Taichi was surprisingly calm and still smirking, and simply motioned with his still-smoking pistol for Tom to walk - well, stagger - up the street ahead of him. "Ahh, your name is Tommy! Like the soldier who dies! How appropriate. How do the Yankees put it? "You came to the wrong neighbourhood, motherfucker"? I told those UN bastards not to send anyone else to this city, because it's my city now! M sent you to die!" As he had with Lillith, Tom suddenly got the impression that Taichi wan't entirely talking to him. However, he just had to interrupt this tirade: "Wait, what the fuck? "M"? The guy from James Bond?"

"Yes! He sent you to die here, 007!" It seemed that Taichi's accent was growing heavier in response to Tom's.

"Well, I have no reason to hang around here any more. Later, shitlord!" Tom started running, and, as per usual, didn't get very far before Taichi shot him in the back. Luckily for Tom, he died instantly. Gunshot wounds are painful.

Beep. Beep. Beeeeep.

Three seconds later, Tom was back on his face in the middle of a street of broken glass. "Well, it's good to know that still works, at least!" he mumbled, before passing out.

ABRUPT CHAPTER ENDING!

Author's note(s):

I tried to make Taichi a balance between being comical (in a stereotypically Japanese way, sort of) while simultaneously keeping him as an actual person and authentically Japanese. Hence why he's written rather badly. Sorry.

Why does Taichi think Tom's a spy? Because he's fucking crazy. I tried to have that come through too, but in case you didn't see it (and I can't blame you) I'm telling you now.

Hope you enjoyed this.


	6. Again, and again, and again

Disclaimer: Yeah, I know, this is getting old, but hey I like thinking of new stuff to put here. Maybe I'll stop next chapter... Oh, right, I don't own Evangelion.

Chapter 6: Again, and again, and again...

This time, Tom had the hang of walking pretty much as soon as he manged to get himself upright. While he celebrated this minor achievement, however, he let himself get snuck upon again, and soon heard a familiar voice behind him: "What are you doing in my city, you yankee filth?"

"For fuck's sake, Taichi, I'm English. Next time, can you just call me a whatever-the-hell-word-you-used bastard instead of a yankee? It's a little offensive to be compared to those idiots. Right, since you're hopefully confused and overwhelmed by me knowing your name, I'll just -"

BANG

Beep. Beep. Beeeeep.

"Right, so that fucker doesn't get confused when I know his name. Good to know. I wonder if I'll actually get out of this city at some point..." While it may seem to the casual observer that Tom was becoming blasé about dying at long last (and about three hundred and thirty five deaths too late,) he wasn't. Dying still hurt the three hundreth time, after all, and given the lengths normal people go to in order to spare themselves even minor pain the fact that Tom was trying to avoid the pain of death shouldn't really surprise anyone. And for the observer getting annoyed at the fact he's been trapped in the same city for two deaths now, he'll escape sooner or later. While he was musing this, an all-to-familiar figure was creeping up on him from behind. Before the figure could say anything, though, Tom suddenly spun around.

"Okay, okay, you got me. Now, if you'll just come a few steps closer, I'll tell you who I'm working for and their secret plan to kill you and your dog. If you have a dog, that is. They never actually said anything about a dog or lack thereof. It's just a figure of speech pleasedon'tshootmethistime!"

Fortunately for Tom, Taichi decided to actually follow his advice and took a few steps forward until they were in arms reach of each other. Unfortunately for Tom, his attempt to grab Taichi's gun didn't exactly work out.

BANG

Beep. Beep. Beeeep.

"I'm beginning to hate the fucker who thought that the Halo respawining noise was in any way appropriate to put here..."

After a few dozen more failed tries, Tom eventually got the gun off of Taichi, and had him lead Tom out of the city. As per usual, something went wrong. This time, it was a sniper's bullet going ventilating Tom's skull that set him back a little.

Beep. Beep. Beeeep.

"Alright, you honourless dog, I'll do as you ask. Follow me, you worthless gaijin." That came as a bit of a surprise to Tom; rather than starting flat on his face in the middle of a glass-filled stree, he now started with a gun in his hand in the middle of the same glass-filled street. 'Progess, of a sort,' he mused to himself, 'but I want to get the fuck out of here now. Hey, I finally managed to stop saying stuff out loud. More progress.' This time, when they got near the area which the sniper had been hanging out before, Tom tried to make Taichi take a different road. This prompted the aforementioned bandit to rush Tom to take the gun, and Tom pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

"What the flying -" Tom started shouting another stream of curses that would be physically dangerous to repeat here "-with a rusty barge pole won't this thing fire?!" By this point, Taichi had managed to wrestle the gun away from Tom, but hesitated for a second:

"You were holding it wrong, you idiot. There's a safety on the back of the grip, you tried to fire it without pushing down that safety." Taichi quickly showed Tom the back of the gun, and sure enough there was a safety lever on the grip.

"Who the fuck would design something like that? You know what, fuck this, next time I'm just shooting you straight off and finding my own damned way out."

BANG

Beep. Beep. Beeeep.

True to his word, this time around Tom just shot Taichi instead of asking him to lead him out. Fortunately for Taichi, Tom wasn't a particularly good shot, so it missed most of his vital areas. Unfortunately for Taichi, it hit him in the groin area instead.

"Hahaha, that's schadenfreude for you, fuckface! That's for all the times you've shot me, or lead me into a trap!"

After a few hours of traipsing through the city, getting lost, avoiding the one street that he knew contained a sniper and almost running into more bandits once or twice, Tom finally managed to get to the edge. As if to mark his achievement, the words "Checkpoint reached... saving..." appeared in the corner of his vision. He punched the air in delight, and shouted into the sky: "I'm free! You assholes tried to keep me down, but I got out! I am FREE!"

Over on the horizon, a faint outline of a helicopter appeared, heading straight towards Tom. 'I'll let this get close this time around,' he decided 'see if they want to give me a lift.' As it approached, he could just make out some of the letters and logos emblazoned on the nose. The letters UN and the associated logo gave him a little hope, but the unfamiliar symbol that looked like some sort of upside-down triangle with curly bits sticking out of it accomapanied by the acronym - 'or is it some word or other?' he thought to himself - SEELE made him pause. He pressed what he assumed to be the magazine release on his gun - luckily it was - and put gun and magazine in seperate pockets, to make himself seem less of a threat. 'I haven't gotten all this way just to be taken down by some drugged-up soldiers who think I'm about to blow them up or something' he thought as the helicopter started landing in front of him.

He wasn't prepared to be rushed, have his gun taken from him and knocked unconcious.

He woke up what seemed like several hours later, on board the now-airbourne helicopter. He was about to try to bite the soldier next to him, as his arms were handcuffed to his seat and he wanted off the helicopter, when the words "Checkpoint reached... saving..." appeared once more. He had just enough time to start yet another stream of swearing before the soldier he was going to bite noticed he was awake and knocked him unconcious again.

AUTHOR'S NOTE(S)

Dun! Dun! DUUUN! However shall our hero (yeah, right) escape from this conundrum? Tune in next time to find out! Same Bat time, same Bat channel!

On a slightly more serious note, I hope you enjoyed this, if you have anything to say ("You suck", "stop writing", "I want ice cream") you can leave a review or something. I don't really care either way, but it'd probably stroke my ego and he always wants stroking.

Later, shitlords.


	7. Timeskip Time!

Disclaimer: Legally, I don't actually own anything. Even this body's technically being rented.

Chapter 7: Timeskip time!

Shinji Ikari was not a very happy teenager. The reasons for this were as numerous as they were weighty, ranging from a lack of clear parental figures in his life to his biological father luring him from a boring but tolerable life to work with him on some sort of UN project that would probably end with him emotionally if not physically scarred. Added to this was the fact that the train he was on had decided to stop near the border between Tokyo-3 and Old Tokyo, commonly known as a den of gangsters, revolutionaries and door-to-door salesmen. On top of that, the phones were out and he'd started to hallucinate some random blue-haired chick. Even his hallucinations were disappointing, it seemed.

A far more pressing concern, however, was the giant monster crashing through the city towards him, shrugging off the combined firepower of a whole squadron of VTOL gunships.

Just as he noticed the monster, it decided that the light tickling it was receiving from the gunships was now an annoyance, and speared one with some sort of of energy lance. The wreck crashed close by, and for good measure the monster jumped (jumped!) onto it, cooking off the remainder of the ammunition on board and giving Shinji a mild tan from the flames.

Luckily for Shinji, (and, coincidentally, the rest of humanity,) a car pulled in between the wreck and his body, shielding him from the worst of the explosion. A door opened, revealing an attractive young woman who had promised to pick him up but must have found something better to do while he was being threatened by a giant monster.

"Get in!" the woman almost screamed at him, and he scrambled into the car, barely having time to pull his bag in before the woman - Misato Katsuragi, he remembered while not conincidentally looking at her cleavage - pushed the accelerator pedal through the floor of the car and they sped off. Fortunately for the both of them, the monster seemed more concerned with carefully demolishing one of the office blocks than demolishing their car.

"What was that... thing?!" Shinji blurted out as soon as they seemed safe, while also trying to recall any curse words he could think of.

"That was a humanoid life-form we call an Angel. Your father really picked a bad day for you to turn up, right?" Katsuragi replied.

A range of responses ran through Shinji's imagination, with at least six ending up with them having sex, but he settled on his normal standyby. "Yeah, I guess..." Another thought occurred to him just afterwards; "Do you know why he called me here, miss Katsuragi?"

"You came here and you didn't even know why?!" Katsuragi seemed almost offended by the idea, but her face softened upon seeing Shinji's customary look of utter broken-ness, "It's alright. Please, call me Misato, I don't like all that formal stuff anyway," she said brightly. By this point, the car had reached the highway on the ridge that was the physical barrier between Tokyo-3 and Old Tokyo. Misato stopped the car, and pulled out a pair of binoculars and a generic-looking guidebook. "Here, read this while I take a quick look at what's going on" she said.

The booklet had the words UN ANGENCY NERV written across the cover, with a half-fig leaf logo and the words "God's in his heaven, all's right with the world". Leafing through, Shinji found it to be full of generic mission statements like "We are committed to ensuring the future of Humanity" and "We wish to develop a more interlinked world" with very little information on what NERV actually was, what position his father held or even if they had access to a decent swimming pool. Strangely enough, however, there was a map of all the bars and alcohol stores in Tokyo-3, as well as a map of public toilets. "Misato," he called, "What is NERV, anyway? And what does my father do there?"

Misato half-turned to give an answer, then suddenly turned back to stare at the cloud of VTOLs around the "Angel". "They wouldn't be pulling back unless... OH CRAP THEY'RE GOING TO DROP AN N2 MINE!" Shinji found himself wedged between two rather soft mounds of human flesh - exactly as according to the fourth scenario he'd worked out earlier, weirdly enough - and there was a sudden rush of air and the sensation of weightlessness, then nothing for a moment.

When everything stopped moving, and Misato noticed she was about to become one of the few people in history to kill a teenaged boy with their cleavage, Shinji saw that their car was now distinctly on its side. They crawled out of the unblocked window, and Misato started screaming about how she only had thirty-eight payments left and that she didn't have insurance and that this was a disaster and so on. Shinji just tried to find the crater left by the N2 mine on the horizon, but instead of a softly-smoking hole in the ground he was greeted by the sillhouette of the Angel against the sun. Shinji blinked a couple of times; surely nothing could have survived a direct hit from such a weapon?

"Hey! Shinji! Give me a hand back here," came Misato's voice from behind him, breaking his stunned silence, "I need to get this thing back on all four wheels!"

With a lot of effort, eventually the car was upright again, but when Misato tried to start the engine she found the battery had been fried by the EMP from the N2 mine, forcing Shinji to get out and give the car a push start. He was suddenly thankful for his brief obsession with weight-training a year ago.

A short drive later - punctuated by many stops where Shinji had to get out and push - they came across a car parts shop, which Misato plundered for spare batteries. Shinji concientiously stopped her after the fourteenth battery, pointing out that they needed to get to wherever they were going before the Angel fired off whatever response it had to an N2 mine. "Sure thing, Shinji," Misato said with a forced smile, "I'll call us an express elevator from the Geo-Front, I think we deserve it."

It turned out that "Express" was a relative term, and they spent more than half an hour in silence riding the elevator before Shinji broke the silence; "So... what does my father do, then? All my teacher told me is that it's something to do with humanity's future..."

"It is," came Misato's reply, "But I'm sorry, I can't tell me any more yet." There was a hostile pause between the two, broken by Misato; "Do you have an ID card? We're going to need that to get you into NERV, maybe your dad will tell you more once we're there!"

Shinji wordlessly handed over a heavily-torn scrap of paper with a standard NERV ID card clipped to it.

"You don't like your dad, do you?" Misato asked, looking at the scrap of paper. "I guess we have that much in common, at least..."

"Perhaps... wow! Is that the real Geofront?! Amazing!" Shinji exclaimed, the elevator having just dropped beneath the final armour layer between the city and the massive underground cavern now filling Shinji's view. It streched far enough that he had trouble making out the edges of the cavern, and had enough space for an underground lake, several farms and a massive black pyramid, complete with inverse-pyramid reflecting pool. He just stared in wonder, forgetting all about the Angel and all the evasions and half-truths from Misato.

"Yeah, it is." Misato said with the second genuine smile of the day.

Two hours later, and they were lost inside the black pyramid. Shinji was sure they'd passed the elevator cluster they needed seven times already, but when he pointed this out Misato snapped at him about her being the one who worked there. The seventh time they passed it, Misato noticed the markings showing that yes, this was the route they needed to take. Before Shinji could even think of saying "I told you so!", one of the elevators opened and revealed a blonde-haired woman in some sort of lab coat/one-piece swimsuit combination. Shinji was suddenly thankful that he was standing behind Misato, rather than beside her. "Misato Katsuragi," the blonde began, "You're ten minutes past our largest error margin. Any more, and we were going to send out a search party." Misato at least had the decency to blush at this. "And this must be the Third Child," she continued, "I'm Doctor Ritsuko Akagi. It's a pleasure to meet you." At this, Shinji's face turned to the exact shade of red thought previously only found in an obscure species of deep-ocean fish, Shinji having remembered that Dr. Akagi was wearing a one-piece swimsuit that really clung to her figure.

Misato and Shinji stepped into the elevator with Dr. Akagi, and for the next minute or so Shinji tried desperately to control his body's reaction to being in close proximity to two rather attractive specimens of the opposite sex. As such, he missed out on their rather interesting discussion about an 0-9 system and something to do with a thing called Unit 01.

Once the elevator stopped, Dr. Akagi lead Shinji and Misato into a dark room. Shinji suddenly started panicking, having not been paying attention and fearing he'd gotten seperated from his guides / future harem members.

The lights came on.

Shinji almost fell backwards in shock.

A giant armoured face was the first thing that Shinji saw, followed by a massive horn mounted on the face's nose. The thing looked like some sort of demon, Shinji mused, a Demon to fight an Angel...

A voice came from above: "So. You have returned, as called." An all-too-familiar voice.

"Father. What is this thing? Why did you call me here?" The shadowed form of Shinji's father nodded towards Dr. Akagi.

"This," she began, "Is the synthetic humanoid Evangelion Unit 01. This is humanity's greatest weapon, and you, Shinji Ikari, will pilot it."

Shinji considered it for a moment.

"Is this all you want with me, father? To call me back and use me like a toy soldier?"

"I sent you away because I no longer needed you. I called you back, because now I have a use for you. Pilot it, Shinji, it is the only weapon that can stop the Angel before it kills us all."

With those words, what little defiance left in Shinji drained away, and he looked towards the floor and muttered "Okay. Fine. I'll do it, if that's what you want."

The next few minutes were a blur, but he somehow ended up in some sort of cockpit wearing some weird clips in his head and gripping the control panels. An orange fluid started to fill the cockpit, prompting a panic attack from Shinji; "What is this?! It smells like blood! You're trying to drown me, let me outletmeoutletmeout!"

A familiar voice came over the radio: "Just stay calm and breath it in, Shinji. The LCL will oxygenate your blood more effectively than air, and is an essential component of the synchronisation process."

"Commodore? Is that you out there?" Shinji asked, hoping that it was someone he knew at last.

"Yeah," came the man Shinji knew as Commodore Tom's voice, "I'm acting as support for this operation. Damned UN dragged me out of retirement for this. Alright, first thing to remember is that the Evangelion is controlled by your mind. Ritsu here tells me your sync score is... holy hell in a hand grenade, forty-seven percent?! You shouldn't have any trouble getting it to do anything, but you do have to remember how to actually tell it to do something. Now, I've not gone through this myself, and it'd be a little unkind to wake Rei up in the state she's in, so you're going to have to figure out how to do that yourself." While he'd been talking, the Evangelion had been moved to the area marked on Shinji's HUD as the "Launching Rails". Tom kept speaking; "Alright, the magnetic interference from the rails is going to make talking to you difficult, so I'll get back to you when you're topside."

As he said that, the Evangelion shot upwards, pushing Shinji into his seat. It was, mercifully, over soon, and Shinji found himself staring at the Angel - designated as "ANGEL 04" in his HUD - from the opposite end of Tokyo-3's main avenue.

"Now then, Shinji, try to remember the basics of CQC. You remember how I taught you to fight? Go use it on the Angel. We can't support you right now, but if you last long enough we should be able to get a knife to you." With that, the HUD element showing that Tom was talking to him disappeared.

Shinji lowered himself into the not-quite crouch that was the basis of CQC, and moved the Evangelion's hands into something approximating the correct stance. He took one step forward -

and was flat on his face.

"Ah," the box popped back up, "Maya did say something about a balance problem. Just get up before... oh, too late."

The Angel had closed the gap between it and the Evangelion, and was about to grab the Unit's helmet before Shinji's all-too-often-used CQC reflexes kicked in. He grabbed the Angel's arm.

The other arm grapped onto his helmet.

Spikes of pain suddenly lanced through Shinji's head as the Angel used its energy lance to try to poke the Evangelion's eye out. Over the radio, he could just hear the cries of panic and status updates from NERV.

The last thing he heard before blacking out was Tom's box saying "Oh, hey, it finally worked."

_  
Autho's notes

Not much humor in this one, I'm sorry, but this kind of sets the scene for me to either do flashbacks to how the hell Tom got to be a Commodore or to continue with the story proper. More to the point, this was written from Shinji's point of view, sort of, hence the lack of stuff happening at NERV. Let me know what you think of that.

For those readers who simply must know, I'm probably going to use the main Angels from Rebuild with a couple from the series, depending on what I want to happen. No, I don't have a plan (aside from "Tom is the third unluckiest person in the history of the universe"), I do one chapter after another.


	8. Things Happen!

Disclaimer: *GENERIC LEGAL BOILERPLATE STUFF*

Shinji Ikari woke up. This alone wasn't exactly that unusual for him - he did so almost every day, excluding that one month in a coma as a result of a classic school science experiment - but the location of said awakening was.

He was naked. In a hospital bed. In Tokyo-3. He didn't remember the night before. Most importantly, he didn't recognise the ceiling of his room.

He sighed. "Unfamiliar ceiling. They told me this would happen one day." He sat up and took stock of the room. Nothing much - a bed, a window, some plants, some beeping machine that seemed to be required by law to be in every hospital room - so he lay back down and started to go back to sleep.

Then he remembered.

Rei Ayanami was not a happy person. She was in pain, the nurses had taken her comfortable uniform and given her some starchy hospital gown, the window in her hospital room didn't have a good view of anything and to top it all off, they hadn't even given her those drugs that made her hallucinate. Oh, and the person next door was screaming.

Wait, what? That wasn't supposed to happen.

Oh, well, someone else could help them. She couldn't walk yet, and wasn't going to follow orders until they gave her the good pills anyway.

One of the windows of the third floor of the NERV hospital shattered as an irate fourteen year old boy threw a Beepy Machine 2008 (TM) out of it. Gendo Ikari looked up for a second, then decided that now would not be a good time to visit his son.

Misato Katsuragi was swamped with paperwork. Damage reports, budget reports, complaint letters from local groups (including one from the Society for the Promotion of Angelic Macinations), sexual harrasment lawsuits from someone called "Sachiel" (something about being forced to commit fellatio on an ICBM) and, of course, the four hundred page long replacement form for a Beepy Machine 2008 (TM). Oh, and the housing forms for the Third Child.

She jumped, startled, as she recognised the address of his apartment. She could _not_ allow this to happen.

Inside Gendo's office, the Commander and the Commodore were having a showdown. Fifteen years of careful alliance-building, of backstabbing, of plotting all came down to this one minute. Two Titans of the NERV world, face-to-face. The Sub-Commander had vacated the room long before, not wanting to get caught in the cross-fire.

"Look, it's my damned bottle, that means I get the bloody worm, dammit!" the Commodore almost screamed at the Commander, cactus ready to block any move the other made.

It was never said that this was an _important_ conflict, at least not for the world at large, just one that had been a long time coming.

Fortunately for the potted plant the Commander held ready to throw, Misato chose this moment to barge through the office doors, an out-of-breath Shinji in tow.

She stalled for a second, taking in the rather bizarre scene in front of her - the most powerful person in Tokyo-3 standing on his own desk armed with a potted plant, with the Commodore sitting in the Commander's seat brandishing a cactus - before deciding to continue anyway.

"Whose stupid idea was it to put Shinji in the Red Light District?!"

The Commander looked at her, then back at the Commodore; "We have a Red Light District?"

Following a brief shouting match between Misato, the Commander and the Commodore, it was decided that Shinji would live with Misato, at least until he got sick of cleaning up after her.

"Not much better than the Red Light District then" the Commodore commented, picking a cactus needle out of Shinji's arm.

"Misato... was that... normal?" Shinji meekly asked, waiting for the checkout operator to finish bagging their food and trying to get a bit of leaf out of a rather sensitive place without Misato - or anyone else - noticing.

"When those two get together? According to the stuff the Sub-Commander says after a few whiskeys, yes. Otherwise, not so much." She looked at her new charge, feeling gleeful on the inside at all the dress-up she was going to be able to play with her new doll. Outwardly, she was more composed. "Say, Shinji, why didn't your father offer to take you in, anyway?"

"We... don't get on much." There was an awkward silence for a second, then Shinji changed the subject; "Just what the hell is the Commodore doing here, anyway? Last time I saw him, he was headed to South America..."

"Somehow, the UN managed to track him down, and gave him to us as a support asset for the Evangelion Project. The British weren't happy about it, and neither was North America, but Euro managed to convince Africa and Russia to give him to us."

There was another pause.

"You know, you shouldn't buy all this junk food. It isn't healthy." Shinji stated, with a surprisingly confident air.

"Yeah, well, you can do the shopping next time, smartass."

"Fine, I will."

In one of the rooms in the NERV hospital, two shadowed figures were sealing a deal.

"You got the stuff?" the Commodore asked.

"Yes." Rei replied.

"I've got the stuff you wanted in exchange." The Commodore said, answering the unasked question.

"Good." Rei reached out to the Commodore, a small pill bottle in her hand. She'd had to threaten the duty nurse to get two bottles of these, claiming it was a result of the pain medication.

The Commodore took the bottle, then placed a small file on the desk beside Rei's bed, alongside a VHS tape of the battle a few days previously. "Don't let them catch you with this. We will disavow all knowledge of you should you get caught." That at least got a slight exasperated flick of her eyes.

He turned to leave.

"Is it true?" Rei asked.

"Is what true?" the Commodore asked in answer, turning to face her again.

"That you taught him as well?" A small grin spread across the Commodore's face.

"Of course it is. Did you think for a moment that I wouldn't have?" He chuckled. "But he knows even less than you do right now. Go to sleep, First Child. You're going to have a busy few days."

With that, the Commodore left, taking a bottle of her happy pills - **her** happy pills - in exchange for the Third Child's file, and the tape of his first battle.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Decided to end this chapter here. I'm experimenting with some new styles - that is, in fact, part of what got me to write this in the first place - so let me know what you think.

Will we ever find out just how Tom became a Commodore? Or what exactly did SEELE want him to do? What happened to the Worm in the end? All these questions, and more, will be addressed (if not answered) when I can think of answers for them!


	9. We're on Cloud Nine!

Shinji had almost entered shock as he walked into Misato's (and now his) apartment. The place was filthy! Cans of beer, discarded instant food packets, unwashed clothes and even several other unmentionable objects were just littered everywhere - even on the floor! Misato noticed that her new housemate seemed to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and, mistaking it for fallout from the Angel battle, said "Why don't you come in, this is your home now too!"

_This is going to take a while to clean up, _the boy thought to himself.

About half an hour later, Shinji was unpacked, Misato was cooking and the very worst of the mess in the flat was now at least out of sight.  
When the time came for the food to be served, Shinji recoiled from the table in fright - not only was the food instant, but somehow his guardian had managed to simultaneously overcook and under-cook it. _She is never cooking again_, he mentally resolved, _at least not while I have to eat it_. Again, Misato mistook Shinji's reluctance as shyness, and shoved a pot of curry his way accompanied by a "It's instant, but it's good, you should try it!"

Needless to say, by the end of the meal Shinji needed the bathroom badly. When Misato suggested he take a bath to "Wash all those bad memories away," he jumped from his seat and ran around the apartment searching for the bathroom. Finding it, he unloaded himself into the toilet, then began drawing himself a bath. Two minutes later, it was ready.

That was when the penguin walked in.

"Miss Misato! There's a... a THING... in the bathroom!"

"A what?" The penguin walked out of the bathroom, realizing he wasn't going to get a bath right now. "Oh, that's just Pen-Pen," Misato explained, "He's a warm-water penguin, and our other room-mate." She noticed something else, "Oh, you might want to cover up, too. It's kinda cold out here." Her tease had the desired effect, sending Shinji a colour of red that had never actually been recorded before as he clasped his hands around his crotch and sidled back into the bathroom.

_Maybe I was a little too eager back there,_ Misato thought to herself, _he IS still recovering from the Angel battle... Nah, he needs cheering up!_

While Misato and Shinji were sort of bonding in their apartment, another guardian/pilot pair across the city were having a slight disagreement in a hospital room. "You said I'd be used as bait to get him to pilot! I was looking forward to having my own white knight, as well!" Rei shouted across the dinner table, teacup-mounted laser cannon pointed at the Commodore's plate.

"Look," Tom began, "Just because it happened last time doesn't mean it happens every time. I told you this, but you never listen!" The reflective dinner plate bounced Rei's laser shot back at the cannon, ruining the focusing array, "Besides, there's anywhere upwards from five more chances for you to get your own little fantasy," Tom's counter-attack began at this, several miniature missile launchers deploying from his drinking glass and launching a salvo at Rei's fork, "and stop trying to kill me already, I check-pointed about an hour ago dammit!" Rei was the only person in Tokyo-3 (besides Lillith, The Commander and the Evas, but they didn't count) to know about Tom's re-spawning problem. Not that it had been much of a problem recently - half of the NERV armoury came from abusing the checkpoint system, after all. "In fact, if you really, really want to get with him just go over to his place; he's probably having a bath or something, Misato would let you in just to mess with the damned kid!" Rei pondered the Commodore's statement, then gave a measured reply:

"That action would fall outside my acceptable behavior boundaries," the Commodore rolled his eyes at her use of formal language, "The Commander would then believe that I no longer hold respect for him, which I do, causing friction before I am allowed to by the script."

"Dammit, Rei, stop calling it "The Script", just because the Plan plots our every move doesn't make it a script!" This was an old argument between the two, and a sign that Tom could now serve dinner without fear of attack. Rei's fork, on the other hand, had been vaporized by Tom's missiles. _It's convenient that dinner is ice cream then_, the technically-immortal Royal Navy officer thought to himself, _Rei would actually try to kill me if I served anything that needed a fork after blowing hers up, never mind the fact she can't eat solid food right now..._

TIMESKIP - THE NEXT DAY  
-

"This," The Commodore began his spiel to the teenager before him, "Is the Evangelion Mark 01. It is the most powerful weapons system known to mankind at this time. It is armoured on every surface with one meter of the best armour I could find, armour which at a thickness of just one millimeter is enough to ignore .50 calibre anti-tank rounds. To create that one millimeter also costs the entire GDP of Saudi Arabia for one year. It is armed with what we call a Progressive Knife, which is a vibrating blade which can slice through main battle tanks with ease. To build one for human use would cost more than the UN Agriculture budget, let alone how much it cost to scale it up for the Evangelion. Therefore, when in real combat, you **do not** use the Progressive Knife to "clean dirt" from under the Evangelion's fingernails. I mean, not only does dirt not get that close to the Evangelion's hand during normal operation, but the damned thing **doesn't actually have fingernails!**"

The latest simulation of the Fourth Angel's attack had gone badly. Doctor Akagi had not "spawned" the digital replica of the enemy behemoth for several hours, leaving a very bored Third Child to amuse himself.

He'd taken off the armour of an entire finger - and was working on the others - of the simulated Unit 01 before Dr. Akagi had enough and let Shinji kill the Angel in his usual fashion, that is by grabbing the nearest sharp object - bullet, knife, nearby building, it was all okay for Shinji - and impaling the Angel's core on it.

He'd gotten to the point where even when the Bridge Bunnies (as they were called by everyone - even the Eva's incoming contact screen listed them as Bridge Bunny 1, 2 and 3) gave the Angel capabilities verging on godhood he could kill it in less than a minute.

He'd broken eighteen Progressive Knives, lost 14.653 kilometers of armour plate and used a very, very expensive Positron Carbine as a club/bayonet combo.

The Commodore was beginning to have doubts about letting Shinji pilot Unit 01 permanently, if only because he'd need to have his company - the main supplier of the Eva's armour and weapons - drop several lucrative contracts just to replace projected losses in equipment during normal combat operations, let alone what might happen if an Angel managed to blow up the Evangelion Armoury. By UN order, he couldn't even charge NERV for such replacements.

All around NERV, people had a sudden urge to safeguard their bank balances.

While Shinji was being dressed down by the Commodore, Rei had managed to get access to the security feeds for both the Evangelion cages and the male pilot dressing room. Thanks to the magic of video recording, she now had several week's worth of entertainment ready for when she got bored.

_I wonder how much the other females at school would pay to see some of this,_ she wondered, seeing an opportunity for profit, _let alone the male fitness enthusiasts..._

The resultant quarter-smile that appeared on Rei's face at this thought was captured on the security footage being viewed by the Commander.

It was said sometimes that all NERV ever did was spy on people, even themselves.

NEXT TIME: MAYBE AN ANGEL BATTLE! TOJI DOES A THING! REI GETS OUT OF HOSPITAL FOR A BIT! Tune in next time on Experimental!


	10. We broke into the double digits!

Yeah, I'm not bothering with the disclaimer this time.

It was some obscene time of night, like five in the morning, and Tom had had quite enough of being awake for at least several days. This sudden loathing of being aware had originally prompted him to try to sleep, hell, he'd been trying to sleep since he got back from visiting Rei, but it seemed whenever he was almost asleep someone would barge into his room asking for one thing or another.

This didn't raise as much alarm as it would with other people, even when taking into account that aside from Rei (who kept to her own side of their shared residence most of the time, thank fuck, he had enough problems as it was), Tom lived alone. It should have just been him in the residence, and it technically was.

Alternate and Future Toms were kind of dicks like that.

About 6 AM the same day, Shinji Ikari got out of bed, got dressed and did all his other morning stuff. He'd not slept well the previous night, between the nightmares/memories of the Angel battle and the feeling he kept having of someone else being in his room. The latter was probably just something like mental feedback from the Evangelion, he rationalized. No need to bug Dr. Akagi about it, or Misato. Especially not today; he probably wouldn't even see them until late.

Today was kind of special. It marked Shinji's first ever day at school.

One may be inclined to ask how the hell that happened. The explanation is quite simple; between being home-schooled by the guy his father left him with (who didn't do too bad a job, because Shinji did know all the academia an average fourteen year old might know, that is, next to none) and subsequently being half caught up in the strange whirlwind that followed the Commodore around (which taught him, if all else fails, bluff your way out of trouble), he didn't really have the time or the need. This also kind of played into the Commander's plans; after all, if he didn't have any friends, then no-one would tell him to man the fuck up and get in the giant robot already.

Strangely enough, Shinji was looking forward to being shut in a succession of small rooms with other people his age who'd turn towards the weakest acceptable target in the class to vent their frustrations. The idea of threatening them with being stomped on by the Eva didn't occur to him, neither did the idea that his classmates might try to hurt him.

During this narration, Shinji had managed to get to school about twenty minutes before they actually started having classes. Had any of the other attendees been around, this would have marked him for the special treatment, then they would have reasoned that it is his first day and all (if they'd have been perceptive enough to notice such things) and let him off the hook. This time.

Of course, there wasn't anyone else around, aside from the receptionist who gave him directions to his main classroom. Said directions were incredibly terrible, to the point that Shinji was actually five minutes late to class. This marked him out as a target, and under other circumstances he'd have been abused by both authority figures (for being late) and by his fellow classmates (for being stupid enough to be late, especially with the class representative they had), but fate had other plans. These were forcing him to introduce himself to the class - a task which he somehow managed to pull off despite no-one actually paying attention - and finding a free seat to be permanently assigned to under pain of death. School discipline got a lot stricter after the Third Japan-Peru War of 2010. He chose one just behind the only person he even recognised, some blue-haired chick who was in bandages. He wavered a little before sitting down, waiting for Rei (yes, the girl was Rei, somehow she managed to break out of hospital to go to school or something) to introduce herself, but she was currently feeling the downside - or upside, depending on perspective - of downing a whole bottle of painkillers so she could introduce herself to the Third Child. That is to say, she was out of her mind.

Once Shinji finally sat himself down, the teacher, who was some old guy who will probably never be important to this narrative, started droning on about pre-second impact life in some obscure Japanese fishing village. Something to do with volcanoes, ninjas and a British spy. Somehow, this was supposed to be teaching orbital mechanics. Curricula also got a lot tougher after the Third Japan-Peru War, and teaching standards dropped.

Fortunately for both the narrative and Shinji's patience, a message decided to pop up on his screen right then:

**ANON: Is it true you're the giant robot pilot?**

Strangely enough, it only took Shinji a moment to respond. This could tie into a theory about how all teenagers subconsciously seek attention or something, but research into such areas is annoyingly sparse. Then again, perhaps scientists don't want to waste their time paying attention to teenagers when they can go to the moon.

** : Yes.**

Needless to say, this caused the entire class (aside from three people: Rei, the teacher, and some tracksuited douchebag at the back) to leap up and start asking him questions.

He blacked out until after the lesson ended.

Noticing everyone (except Rei, who was still high) had left the classroom, Shinji decided to go explore the school and see if he could find some food somewhere. It was almost midday, and he still hadn't eaten.

He was almost at the canteen - and thus, partial safety - when the tracksuit accosted him, pushing him outside and then punching him solidly in the face, shouting something about his sister, while some nerd kid filmed the whole thing.

Ten seconds later, Tracksuit (whose name, it turned out, was Toji) was on the ground fixing a broken nose. Rei had finally snapped out of whatever daze she'd been in, and noticing that the current object of her fascination was being assaulted by some asshole in a tracksuit right beneath the window she was passing, had jumped out said window and performed a move Tom might have recognised as a mid-air assassination attempt, only without a knife or other deadly implement. Her rationale was not to protect Shinji per se (although that was a factor) but more to reverse the "white knight" scenario she was trying to set up between them.

Shinji, faced by a look from his classmate (who'd just jumped from a second story window and landed on another student as an attack) that said "Why the hell didn't you protect yourself, you incompetent git", hastily explained the situation.

Before he could mess things up, though, Shinji's mobile phone started beeping, indicating an Angel attack. Toji quickly disappeared, along with nerd kid, and Rei decided to get herself back to the hospital before anyone started looking for her, leaving Shinji alone to get to NERV.

Fortunately, his Section 2 detail, who had been getting coffee and donuts shortly before the attack, had been ordered to pick the kid up and get him into the Evangelion.

Shinji took several deep breaths of the LCL, steadying himself for the fight to come. He ran through the plan in his head: Get deployed in building (45284C), deploy AT field to neutralise Angel's field, shoot Angel in the giant red thing (Core) with rifle, go take all his competitor's food and women. The last one was subconscious, for the record.

It turns out that nobody at NERV had thought about what he should do if the plan were to fail.

He walked out the building, spread his AT field as far as he could, then sighted on the Angel's core and pulled the trigger. Every single shot went on target, and the Angel disappeared behind the cloud left behind by the explosive munitions.

It was just a pity the Angel's AT field was out of range of the Evangelion's.

It reached out with its energy whips (all jokes about tentacles and sex toys having been exhausted about five minutes after the Angel was first spotted) and tore the rifle apart. Shinji did what he was conditioned to do under such circumstances, and tried to charge the Angel. He had been taught a little by the Commodore, after all. The Angel responded by grabbing the Evangelion - forcing a feeling of having burning ropes squeeze Shinji's torso - and threw it at a mountain.

Inside a shelter inside a mountain, two fourteen year old boys were talking. Well, one was talking about how the news blackout sucked, the other was just tuning him out. At least, until the bespectacled one mentioned needing to talk to the tracksuited one in private. They made their excuses and headed to the bathroom, conveniently located just beside the secondary exit for the bunker.

"So, Ken, what the hell did you drag me out for this time?" asked Toji.

"It's just... well, I found a way to override the locks on that door back there, the one that leads to the surface. I need to see this fight, but it's a two-man job to get it open." The boy named Kensuke - the nerd kid from earlier - replied.

"You want to go out there, while another one of these battles is taking place!? Have you lost your damn mind?!"

"Look, it's going to be him out there, and we kind of owe it to him to watch this. You did beat him up. And if anyone asks, we're just looking for Rei - she's not around here."

"A good excuse, but there's no way in hell I'm actually going to help that psychopathic bitch. Come on, then, may as well do this now before you start whining."

Shinji reflected on the fact that all was not going according to plan. This actually caused him to learn that his plans were fallible, no matter how infallible they may seem, and thus made him a better strategist than, say, SEELE 04 or the Emperor from Star Wars.

Such growth would not do him much good, however, if he didn't find some way to get rid of the Angel. Misato was screaming something about retreating, but the Angel was in the way of all the places he could go. And to top it all off, he had just two minute's power left.

That was, naturally, when the viewscreen of the Evangelion noticed the two civilians on the battlefield. And, of course, they were the same pair who'd beat him up (well, one did the beating up) earlier. "Erm... Captain? There are a couple of kids on the battlefield, and I can't move without either killing them or mentally scarring them with the AT field. Advice, please."

A small amount of debate ensued. _There's no rush,_ Shinji mentally complained, _it's not like I'm down to one minute and thirty six seconds of power or anything. Just let me kill the bastards already._

The order came in, Misato's voice flowing from a communications box: "Lock the Eva into position and let them into the cockpit. You'll just have to deal with the mental contamination, we can't let any civilians die in this battle!"

_Well, shit. Looks like it's your lucky day, assholes._ Shinji did as instructed, and as soon as he heard the splashes of people entering the plug, closed the Eva back up and re-synchronised. Then, letting the anger and frustration at his shitty day build, he let out a brutal war scream, pulled out the Progressive Knife and charged down the mountain at the Angel, not even noticing when it impaled him on its whips or even when he stabbed its core with his knife.

He didn't stop screaming until the Angel was dead.

Then, about to pass out from the pain of the battle, he turned to his unwelcome hitchikers, and spoke: "Next time I'm in school, you asshats wait on me hand and fucking **foot**, got it?" The two others in the plug hastily nodded.

That was when he passed out.

"You owe me fifty quid. He actually got pissed enough to threaten them." The Commodore passed the requested money to the alternate him who'd been watching the battle. "You kind of cheated, though, I bet you've already done this battle," he said.

"Oh, dozens of times," he replied, "but normally he just sits there crying until he passes out, then they become friends or some stupid shit like that."

"Speaking of this battle, you'll never guess what my Rei did today," he started.

"So long as it's not something like setting fire to your house or something, I'm interested. Seriously, all the Reis seem to do that at some point," Tom replied.

"She sneaked out of hospital, while still in bandages, then jumped out of the school's second story window to land on that Toji kid."

"...That's actually something I've never heard happen before. That earns you your fifty pounds back." The alternate Tom passed the note back to the Actual Tom.

"Heck yeah," Actual Tom celebrated, "I'm going to go get some food and stuff. Get your ass out of here before anyone notices."

END

Author's Notes

Oooh, mysterious mystery time! What's going on with Tom now? Will these alternate/future Toms ever actually intervene in the plot? (The answer to that one is "Not until I get bored and decide to have a mass of Toms vs. everything else showdown) When will Rei actually get out of hospital? Will Toji and Kensuke heed Shinji's warnings? Why is Shinji slightly more badass than usual? Why is English currency being used in Japan? The answers to all these so unimportant questions, and more, may or may not be answered at some point in time.

Hope you enjoyed, now get the hell off of this story page and go read something better.


	11. Insert Pun Here

"You know, Shinji, when a superior officer tells you to retreat, it's normally a good idea. Brass-holes get a bit snippy when you don't listen to them, like this one time in Old Vegas..." Shinji mentally tuned out the Commodore's story - his idea of chewing him out for not following orders - and chose to start introspecting about his new life in Tokyo-3 instead. _I live in a... tolerable... apartment now, instead of a cupboard under the stairs, I have two new servants thanks to Nerdy Guy's stupidity and Tracksuit Guy's anger, the person looking after me is just about eligible - and hot, too, that's important, and I'm getting kills on things even the Commodore can't, _he tallied, _I might be beginning to enjoy this. _Even though he'd only been with the Commodore for about a month, when he was twelve, it'd altered his thinking for the rest of his life.

For some reason, this was actually a good thing.

"Anyway, so when all was said and done, I got the prostitute to hide the body of the mafia don and we managed to get the city fortified before the US army showed up again." Tom finished his story, then noticed something; "You weren't listening to me, were you?" Shinji nodded, and the Commodore sighed. This was already a familiar ritual. He started listing off the various notices he had for Shinji: "Katsuragi wants to put you in the brig for a few hours. I let her in on the fact that that would be a really stupid idea - I believe the exact words I used were 'Let's piss off the one guy who can pilot the Evangelion, which just so happens to be simultaneously the most powerful weapon known to mankind and also the only way to keep humanity alive, because that'll turn out well', with a bit more sarcasm added, of course - but she didn't seem to be convinced. If she tries anything, remind her about the whole Only Saviour of Humanity thing. Next training session's next Tuesday, we'll be seeing if you can take multiple different Angels at the same time." Tom paused for a second, then remembered the last notice; "Oh, and Rei'll get out of the hospital soon." Shinji looked confused, prompting Tom to enlighten him, "The other Evangelion pilot - which kind of invalidates part of your defense, but I'm pretty sure she'd back you up if it came down to it - you saw her around school before the last battle. She was the one who jumped out of a window to attack that Toji kid. That was on top of sneaking out of hospital to go say hi to you, although I think she was too high - no pun intended - to actually do so. Anyway, she'll be pretty much fully functional - or at least as functional as she ever gets - soon, so I might invite you over for dinner or something."

"You know," Shinji asked, "You never did mention you had a daughter, back when in '13."

"It's sort of an on-off thing," Tom began, "She's adopted, sometimes my... other obligations... get in the way of me actually raising her, which is kind of a blessing for her, I guess. Back in '13, I'd been called up and I thought that part of my life wouldn't come back for a while - if ever. Besides, we had more important things to do than talk about family, and it wouldn't have been a good idea to talk about me being a caring father while yours..." He trailed off at the look Shinji gave him. "Look, just get your ass out of here. You're expected at school tommorrow, I can't do anything about that."

The Third Child took the hint, and left the Commodore's office, which was considerably smaller than Shinji's. He hadn't actually found said office yet, but Misato had let slip that, as a Flight Lieutenant in the UN Air Force (it was required by some treaty or other, ostensibly to prevent NERV from having complete loyalty from the Pilot Corps. In actual fact, Tom thought it might be amusing to have a fourteen-year-old equal in rank to the senior officers on his ship,) he was entitled to an office at NERV, which was all kinds of fucked up, considering Misato herself didn't actually have an office so much as a lounge she'd taken over. Unbeknownst to the both of them, Commander Ikari had actually taken over all the NERV office space for his mega-office of doom.

Shoving musings about NERV's messed-up architecture aside, Shinji stalked through the corridors to finally get changed out of the plugsuit - the doctors had forced him to keep it on while they ran counter-psychosympathy routines through it to heal the burn marks he'd suffered, and it was really beginning to smell. He didn't notice the NERV personnel quickly move out of his way, not wishing to be a target of his wrath after witnessing what he'd done to the two Angels he'd fought, not to mention the rumor going around that he'd also been a ward of the Commodore at some point. Everyone had learned to avoid doing anything that might annoy Rei after the Unfortunate Incident in Cage Eighteen.

The next day, everyone at school decided that Shinji was no longer a target. Even the teachers seemed reluctant to call his name on the register. It would have been mildly creepy, except for the fact that Shinji, while internally a lot more critical of his surroundings, remained a very shy and quiet person who, if given the choice, would choose not to hurt people. Most people, at least, he already held a special hatred for the makers of Misato's instant food; not only was it disgusting to eat, but he couldn't even throw away the uneaten food because it was classed as a "Chemical Hazard" and required a specially-trained unit to dispose of.

His train of thought came to a crashing halt as two of his classmates knelt before him, dressed in dark robes instead of the school's uniform. "What is thy bidding, my master," they asked in a passable imitation of someone several years older than them. Shinji just blinked, unsure of what to say. "Er," he finally settled on, "you can go sit in your seats and... do the classwork, I guess?"  
"Of course, Lord!" Replied the one on the left, who Shinji vaguely remembered as Tofu... no, wait, Tony, something like that. The one on the right just started chanting something sounding like latin if latin was spoken by a drunk Norwegian with a mouth full of potatoes. Shinji began wondering if he could use the leverage provided by the Evangelion to exempt himself from school from now on, it wasn't like he'd need the education anyway. He was planning on getting paid for his work.

By next Tuesday, Shinji was well and truly glad that training days meant he could get out of school. His entire class, including the teacher, had formed a cult based around him, and were talking of fighting a war against the unenlightened heathens from the class two doors down. This meant that when the simulation started and an Angel appeared in front of him, he smiled, grabbed a rifle from the nearest armoury building, then cheerfully got to work. While singing.

It took about thirty seconds for the Simulation Body itself to end the simulation. Twenty-nine of those seconds were spent trying to figure out how to end it. In the now-dark Entry Plug, a message box opened up, from the Commodore. "You know, Shinji, this is the first time someone's managed to crash the simulation just by freaking out the simulator. Said simulator, I might add, is lobotomized and incapable of being freaked out. Congratulations." An idea occurred to the Commodore, so he opened the casing on the computer terminal he was sitting at. He took out a wire from the computer, and connected it to the universal connector on his arm. "Since you've managed that, I thought I'd try something out, to keep you on your toes. Instead of these pre-programmed Angel fights, let's try something a little more... interactive." The simulation restarted, but instead of an Angel, Shinji was now facing an identical copy of Unit 01.

Shinji got the distinct feeling he was completely fucked.

"You versus me, one round. Winner... well, I can't actually think of any stakes, so let's just say winner gets bragging rights. Weapons are as normal, city defenses are offline." Dr. Akagi chose this moment to run into the simulation's command deck, let out a stream of profanity, then start shouting at the Commodore: "What the **hell** do you think you're doing? No human mind can interact directly with the MAGI, let alone with the simulation bodies themselves, without dozens of layers of intermediate steps! It'll burn you out!"  
In reply, Tom merely said "Then it's a good thing that's not what I'm doing. I'm interfacing with the simulation program being run by the MAGI as a guest user. Still a fifty-fifty chance of being burned out, but I think I can take it." With this, he slumped forwards in his seat, all of his mind being used to keep himself alive and work in the simulation.

In the simulation, Shinji was counting his advantages. He was an experienced Eva pilot, while the Commodore could probably barely move the Eva, even in the simulation, he was already armed, while the Commodore was several miles from the nearest armoury building, and he was actually using the simulator rather than manipulating it from outside, giving him the edge in response time. He felt pretty confident he could probably force a draw, at the least.

Without warning, Tom's Unit 01 began moving, not towards the armoury building, but towards Shinji, and Shinji realised the mistake he'd made. He opened fire, trying to stop Tom before he got too close, but the shots just sparked off of his AT field. Shinji spread his own field out and managed to get a couple of shots into the other Eva before the distance was closed and the rifle was torn from his hands. Instead of pressing his advantage, however, Tom backed off, and started shooting at the ground. Shinji's mistake came back to haunt him, as the armour plate holding his Evangelion above one of the secondary access lifts failed, and both Evas plummeted down the shaft.

In the ensuing mid-air battle, it was discovered that neither party was particularly good at fighting in mid-air with multi-centitonne war machines. Both landed feet-first, doing moderate damage to their legs, and Shinji noticed the mistake Tom had made, and kicked the lift release. Tom's Unit was sent flying, sans restraints, up the elevator shaft to experience true flight for a brief moment, along with a nice view of the simulated city, before falling back down the shaft. That was when Shinji's second mistake came into play, and Tom managed to steer the Eva so that it fell directly on top of Shinji's Eva, knocking both out of the fight. The simulation went dead for both Pilot and Commodore.

"I think," a newly-awakened Tom began, "that that one classes as a draw, and that we both suck at Eva-on-Eva combat."

End Chapter 11

Chapter 12 Preview:

A Dinner with the Commodore (and Rei)  
The Diamond of Doom makes its appearance!  
Things happen that may or may not be important later!  
Gendo does something!


	12. I'm actually surprised we got this far

It had been three days since Tom and Shinji had had an Eva duel in the MAGI's simulation body. In those three days, Rei had been released from the hospital, Toji and Kensuke led a holy war against the heathens of Class 1-C (The attack was repulsed with high casualties on both sides) and another of the Commodore's long-standing wagers with the Commander had come to an end. Incidentally, if one were to put alcohol in the place of an Eva's LCL, the Eva actually gets drunk. No-one except for Ritsuko and the Magi could tell the difference, though, so both sides agreed that the wager was forfeit.

Needless to say, by Saturday, Shinji was very stressed out. This was, of course, when Tom called Shinji up to invite him around for a dinner at his residence.

After purchasing the body armour and holy water, Shinji made his way over to the Commodore's house, which turned out to be an entire apartment block re-purposed into a mansion. Between the fortune Tom had amassed simply from abusing the stock market (it was difficult, but not impossible, to do so, especially if one were to get lucky with the check-point system,) and his argument that because both a pilot and... whatever official position Tom actually held... lived in that block, it would be more secure if no-one else lived there, they had managed to clear out the entire block.

An aged English butler was waiting at the door for Shinji.

"I am Alfred," he introduced himself, "Butler for the Commodore and his ward. I'd ask to take your coat, but you didn't bring one, so just follow me please." Shinji followed the butler into the lobby of the building, which had been converted into a miniature fortress; sandbags were set up to defend the lifts and stairwell, and machine guns were mounted in crucial positions. The butler called for a lift, and the two soon found themselves in Tom's study; an exact copy of a traditional Edwardian-era British study, except for the fact it took up an entire floor.

The chair at the mammoth desk at the other end of the book-filled floor swiveled around, revealing Tom reading a book. Shinji tried to make out the title - surely a man such as he would be reading some philosophical tract, maybe the Art of War? - but it seemed to be a "Star Wars" book. The Commodore marked his page, closed the book and looked up at Shinji.

"Dinner might be a while yet," he intoned with even more of an English accent than before, "Go upstairs, hang out with Rei for a bit. And take this with you," he produced a NERV ID card, "it's her replacement. I would give it her myself, but I'm lazy and you're right there."

Sighing, Shinji made to leave - the butler had disappeared just after they arrived, so he expected to spend hours looking for Rei's room. Before he could walk onto the lift, Tom called from behind him:

"I'm not meant to do this... but fuck it. The next one's going to hurt. A lot." Shinji turned to ask just what he meant, but found himself on the elevator going upwards before he could even open his mouth.

After another short elevator ride, Shinji found himself facing a short corridor with a single door at the end. He approached it nervously, and knocked three times.

Rei didn't reply, waiting as she was behind the door to ambush Shinji, and also to see how long it would take him to just walk in.

In the end, it took about two minutes, throughout all of which Shinji was having a fierce internal debate between three factions in his mind; one which was worried about Rei not responding, one which advocated running away from every scenario, and the small perverted side in his head whose thoughts need not concern us. Eventually, factions One and Three won out (although One quickly killed Three to prevent it from doing anything) and Shinji pushed open Rei's door.

Within three seconds of entering, he was on his stomach, hands tied behind his back, while Rei tried to think of something to do in this situation. She settled on "Let him loose and talk casually until dinner", and untied his bonds.

"So," she began, "The... weather is quite nice today?"

Shinji just looked at her confused while trying to stand back up. "It has been sunny for a while," Rei continued, filling the empty air and getting the distinct impression that this interaction may be slightly awkward, "and the lack of wind and cloud suggests that it shall remain this way for at least another week." She was, after all, raised in part by a British person, and a naval officer at that. She knew more about weather than she did about social interaction, which isn't saying much.

"Let me get this straight," Shinji launched into a tirade, "You pushed me onto the floor and tied me up, then decided to talk about the freaking _weather_?!"

"Yes." That was Rei's reply, said calmly with no hint of amusement. "Also, one of the students in our class has been cheating on a long-standing love interest with a more physically attractive but less emotionally receptive partner. I estimate the drama will run its course within two weeks, with the original pairing back together and the new partner realizing their flaws."

"...alright," Shinji replied, after a long, awkward pause, "I honestly have no clue what you're talking about, or why. So, I'm just going to fast-forward to the bit where things start making sense." Rei nodded and allowed Shinji to continue: "Here is your ID card," he presented said card to her, "and now we can talk about what's for dinner or piloting Evangelions or my dad or the Commodore or _something_ we actually have in common. Okay?"

"Very well," Rei acceded (The author appears to be running out of synonyms for 'said'), "Dinner will consist of three courses, the first of which shall be a selection of Indian delicacies such as poppadums, sheek kebab and katlama. The main course will be various curries and rices, some Indian-style, some Chinese-style. The final course will be several different desserts, including profiteroles and chocolate cake. The cooking staff would like to remind those eating that the leftovers are distributed amongst the various staff-members and also to the needy of the city, and would therefore like to ask you to not eat everything on the table. You shall provide a reply to this information, then we shall talk about Evangelions, after which we will talk about our carers, then school, then anything else you can think of."

"Dinner sounds... nice, but I've never had Indian food before." Shinji paused for a moment; "And can we please go sit down or something? It's kind of tiring standing here, especially after what you did to my back..."

"You might find it to your taste," Rei said (yeah, he's given up) while leading Shinji to the center of the lounge area, where several couches had been set up, along with a video game system linked to a massive screen mounted on one of the walls of the apartment. Judging by the piles of games surrounding it, the game console seemed heavily used. "Be seated," she commanded (no, wait, he's found another one) as she sat down herself, then continued, "It's a particular favorite of the Commodore, which nicely transitions us to the next part of the conversation despite the fact that it is out of the order that I specified earlier."

"So," Shinji said, "I guess I'm supposed to ask what they're like or something?"

"Correct," Rei replied, "The Commodore is... hard to describe. I believe others refer to him as "So insane he wraps around to sanity several times over", but I have a hard time agreeing with that sentiment. The Commodore is not insane; he just sees no reason to act the same way as everyone else. The Commander, on the other hand, displays traits of severe sociopathy. He also shows signs of work addiction, although considering his position that is both understandable and a good thing. Otherwise, I do not have any more information to provide."

"Actually, I know a bit about the Commodore. You know he's actually technically in command of an Imperial Naval Squadron?" Rei nodded, and Shinji continued, "We were down in Australia, back in '12, and we had these guys after us - long story, I'm sure he'll tell you one day. So we end up cornered, and he just smirks as though he's got it all under control. Suddenly, the guys at the back of the mob that was chasing us start going down, and I swear I saw another Tom behind them - crazy, I know, but it's true! That was all the distraction the Commodore needed, and he gets us far enough away to call in fire support. I've never seen anything like it, not even coming close to the Fourth Angel came close to the feeling of having an entire squadron of ships rain fire down just a few meters away. Then, just as it's winding down, he tells me to look the other way - I don't, obviously - then goes to speak with the other him. The original one disappears, and the other one walks over instead. Weird, right?"

"I have witnessed similar events before." Shinji's eyes widened as Rei said that, calmly as though it were an everyday occurrence. Before she could elaborate, though, the butler knocked on the door and walked in.

"Dinner is being served now, sir, miss," he said, nodding to Shinji and Rei in turn, "If you would kindly follow me." Both teens looked at each other, Shinji shrugged, and they got up to follow the butler to the dining room.

Dinner turned out to be surprisingly nice, despite there not being much conversation during the starter and main courses. While the dessert selection was being brought out, the Commodore looked at Shinji.

"You know," he said, "Tomorrow morning's the activation test for Unit Zero. That means you might actually get some backup out there."

"Actually," Shinji replied, "I'm kind of relieved." He laughed, looking over at Rei, "Not that you'll be fighting, but that you'll be able to cover for me if I get taken down again or something."

"I should hope that it doesn't come to that," Rei said, drawing a surprised look from the Commodore.

"That's not what you were saying before you heard the new pilot was a boy," he teased, "In fact, I believe your exact words were 'Great! I get another meatshield!'" This provoked retaliation from Rei, who activated her plate's missile launcher system.

When all was said and done, all had a good (if slightly painful) time, and Shinji got to take home memories that he would keep forever, as well as the remains of his school uniform (Rei said that she missed with the flame-thrower, but no-one, not even the janitor, believed her.)

Next morning was when everything went to shit. It was going well at first, Rei had successfully re-synchronized with Unit 00, and was in fact showing a small increase in Synchronization Ratio. Shinji had also improved a bit, and actually managed to take down four Angels at once while in the simulator.

That was when the Angel showed up on radar. An ocean-blue octahedron, it flew through the sky with no visible propulsion method. Shinji's entry plug was transferred to Unit 01, and Rei was told to eject from Unit 00 to allow power to be transferred to the purple Evangelion.

"Alright Shinji," came the Commodore's voice out of the communications box, "Remember what I told you and you'll be fine. Get to the surface, grab a rifle and see what this bastard can do." Shinji just nodded, recalling the Commodore's cryptic words yesterday and mentally preparing himself against the sympathy pain that would undoubtedly come.

The deployment did not go well, to say the least. The Angel burned through the buildings between it and the Angel - they weren't stupid enough to put the Eva with a direct line of sight to the Angel, not that it helped - in less than a second, and Shinji screamed in pain and terror as he felt a fiery lance trying to dig into his heart.

"Enough," Came the command from the Commodore, cutting through the panic in the command center. "Blow the explosive bolts in that area, drop it down to the Geo-Front and initiate emergency recovery. Begin procedure R-93, and someone get me a weapon that out-ranges the damned thing."

The Angel, with a sense of something that could be approximated to satisfaction, noted the defeat of its enemy, and extruded a drill from its underside. The drill cut effortlessly through the hardened concrete that made up the surface of the road it had parked over, and began to inexorably tear its way to the Geo-Front.

The battle with the Sixth Angel had just begun.


End file.
